Time Drifters

The bellman held the door for us as we entered the Sheraton Brock Hotel. It had an elegant lobby, like some of the grand old hotels in New York City. But we were here because it was pretty much the first building we came to on the other side of the bridge.

Lucas had been waiting for Helene and me. He was standing, staring back at the United States with a dazed look. When we got to him, however, he spoke clearly and simply.

“Adrienne has gone into the Hotel to mail a letter.”

And with that, we all proceeded as though it was a pre-arranged plan.

When I came out of the bathroom, I noticed framed pictures on the walls in the hallway; Walt Disney, Shirley Temple, Queen Elizabeth of England and Marilyn Monroe, all photographed at this same hotel. Seeing their faces, I wondered for a moment if all of them were Drifters, too. It seemed like we had gone farther back in time. I thought how odd it would be to see a photograph of Helene and Adrienne and me up amongst them. The picture in my mind then changed from a celebrity shot to a crime photo with a glaring flash on all of our faces and the headline blazing the word “Fugitives” across the top.

I hurried out to the lobby and found Lucas was waiting for me, sitting on one of the long cushioned sofas.

“The girls went out to get food,” he said. I must have looked worried because he held up his hand to calm me. “It’s okay, they’re fine. I gave them money. Come sit for a minute.”

I wondered if I was supposed to ditch him and go join the others. I also wondered if he’d ever see his wallet again. But I figured if I were supposed to have received orders, Helene would have stayed behind.

“I don’t really know what to say,” he said. “I’m kind of in shock. But I’m also incredibly grateful. Thank you.”

“Well, you helped us, too,” I said. “And food sounds like a good idea.”

“Yeah, at your age I could pretty well eat non-stop,” he laughed and then became thoughtful, struggling with something. “Really, I want you to know that I think you were a very brave young man back there.”

I remembered the brochure and pulled the pieces out of my pocket.

“Sorry, he tore it up,” I said, putting the bits into his hand. He stared at it.

“Oh, man. I need this,” he said, pursing his lips. “It’s got numbers of people in Toronto. That…” He stopped and looked around and then put the pieces into his pocket. He looked into my eyes for a very long moment.

“What’s your last name?” he asked.

“Trinder,” I said.

“Liam Trinder,” he repeated. “I’m Lucas Lillienfeld. For real, man.” He held out his hand and I shook it firmly. I liked that he didn’t try to lighten the pressure just because I was young.

“I don’t think you’re a coward,” I said, hoping it would make a difference. He kept staring back at me. He licked his lips and nodded slightly.

“We’ll see about that, I guess,” he said quietly. I wanted to tell him that I was American, but I couldn’t. I knew that.

He slapped his knees and smiled, his moustache rising crookedly on one side.

“Come on, nephew,” he said, with a kind of western drawl. “Let’s go eat hotdogs!”

#

I was relieved to see the girls. Strange how they already looked so familiar to me, even though we were in an unfamiliar place. I was relieved to smell the food as Helene handed me the hotdog, and also relieved that Lucas finally got his wallet back from Adrienne.

The vendor had soda in glass bottles, not tin cans. The girls called it “pop,” just the same as my cousins did, and I thought that sounded funny instead of saying “soda.” I chose an Orange Crush. I was trying to balance my hotdog and twist the cap, when Lucas took it from me and cranked it under a metal bottle opener attached to the white boards of the food shed. The cap fell down into a bucket. I looked inside and then grabbed my cap. It had a thin layer of cork inside.

“Neat-o,” I said, holding it to my nose.

“Do you want a straw?” Lucas asked as he held out some.

“Okay,” I said, checking with Adrienne to see if she had an answer for the customary way to consume a drink in 1965. She shrugged and took one, too. But as soon as I tried for a swig, I got a rush of bubbles in my mouth. I couldn’t stop them from expanding. My cheeks blew up and I started spitting out orange spray.

“Liam!” Helene said, disgusted. But she’d no sooner said that than Adrienne jerked forward, evidently having a similar problem. Hers came with a giggle and she ended up turning just in time before she did a spit-take, blowing out a big spritz all over the green garbage drum next to the picnic table.

“Whoa, man,” said Lucas, retreating in amusement. “Supposed to drink it, not spray it.”

“Sorry,” said Adrienne, quickly dabbing her mouth with a napkin, and still laughing with embarrassment. “So sorry. It’s all fizzy up in my nose.”

“Tastes really awesome, though,” I said, laughing through the tickle.

“Awesome?” Lucas repeated, quizzically.

“You’d never know it from what isn’t left in your mouth,” Helene said, removing the straw from her own bottle as though she knew all along what was best.

“Much wiser,” agreed Adrienne. I joined her in pitching the straw and decided to take smaller sips. Maybe the carbonation in the old days was stronger. The glass felt cold and made the bottle a lot heavier than a can, but somehow it also seemed to taste better to me. The orange flavor was really vibrant. I decided to tuck the cap away in my pocket. I could always smell it later if I wanted to remember the great taste.

“Thanks very much for the lunch,” Adrienne said, as Helene and I echoed the gratitude.

“Please, it’s nowhere near adequate for how thankful I feel,” Lucas said, finishing his second hotdog. “So, where is this field trip you’re on? Aren’t you supposed to meet back somewhere?”

“I think we missed them,” Helene said, looking towards the Sheraton. “We need to get over to the Adam Beck power plant, number two. I believe it’s a couple of miles downriver.”

“This is a multiple grade field trip?” he asked, circling his finger at the three of us. “There must be a lot of you.”

Adrienne and I looked at Helene, but she was keeping her attention casually yet constantly on Lucas.

“It’s really more for Science nerds,” she said. Lucas looked at us and we nodded.

“You want anything else?” he said, standing up from the picnic table. We declined and he walked back to the vendor.

“What’s up with him?” Adrienne asked.

“Probably realized his calendar is suddenly totally open,” Helene said. “Drink up, you guys. It must be close to one-thirty, which means we’ve got less than four hours to figure this out.”

I saw Lucas pointing as he spoke to the vendor. Helene stood and Adrienne and I were trying to drink fast because we were obviously on the move.

“Thank you again, Lucas,” Helene said as she was passing the vendor’s shed. “And the very best of luck to you.”

“Wait!” Lucas said. “I’m not just going to leave you to fend for yourselves.”

“We’ll be okay,” Helene said.

“No, I asked and there’s a power plant just down here,” he said, pointing across the open grass of the parkland that lead towards the Horseshoe Falls.

“I’m sure,” Helene countered. “But the Adam Beck number two is that way.”

“But they must be connected,” he said.

“Oh, I’m positive they are,” she said. “In so many ways.”

“That’s it,” Lucas said. “Someone there is bound to know the fastest way to go.”

“I think he’s right on,” I said. Helene looked appalled at my impertinence. I grabbed my chest and looked pointedly downward. She suddenly got it.

“Lucas is saying that he thinks we should go to this power plant,” I said again, getting a second confirmation that my crystal was buzzing. Helene faked that she was reconsidering, while she touched her own chest.

“Walk over to this power plant,” she said. “You know, it’s always worth a shot.”

Just then, Adrienne hiccupped loudly.

“Oh, excuse… hic… me,” she stuttered. “I th… hic… hink I must’ve drun…hic… unk too fast.”

“Well, maybe you can walk it off,” said Helene, already moving ahead.

Lucas easily caught up to her but once again Adrienne and I were struggling behind. We’d barely taken two steps when I felt them, too.

“Oh no! I… hic… got ‘em too,” I said.

“Try breathing in that beautiful fresh air from the Falls,” Helene said, never missing a step.

We both tried it but it was cold and the deeper the breaths, the louder the hiccups. Adrienne and I started giggling, When we hiccupped through the giggle, that sounded even funnier and it made us laugh even harder. Lucas thought it was funny, but Helene was disturbed.

“My goodness,” she said. “You two sound like a couple of my dog’s squeaky toys. I’m going to have to throw you over the stone wall down there and into the Falls, just to frighten it out of you.”

“You would-hic… wouldn’t,” I said. Adrienne immediately burst out laughing and it set us off all over again.

Helene tried to take Lucas’ arm, just as she had when we’d met in the morning. He smiled and gave her hand a squeeze before dropping his arm and pulling away just enough to claim his own space. I didn’t feel badly for her, although I noticed she was getting slightly nasty, sidelong looks from some of the tourists strolling along the broad sidewalks in the park. I supposed it was her light brown skin. She said she was originally from Haiti. I thought she was holding up well in the cold, considering how chilly I felt. I was envying some of the winter clothes others had and then I remembered my gloves and the hat stuffed into my pocket. I reached way in and snagged them.

I was starting to look more like a native.

“That’s a pr…hic…pretty hat,” Adrienne noted, spying a young woman with a small light blue cap that matched her jacket.

“Pretty impractical,” I said, sounding suddenly a lot like my Dad.

“It’s called a … hic… pillbox hat,” Adrienne said, looking back over her shoulder.

The entrance to the power plant was a long sloping driveway that looked like a dry ski hill. Lucas barely gave a second look at the bronze plaque at the top before stepping over a simple rusty chain and heading down in front of us. The plant itself looked like it could have been any old library or government building. The exterior was made of massive stone slabs that were charcoal gray. But the really impressive sight was the Falls themselves looming in the distance. The farther down we went, the taller they looked.

We arrived at the very obvious door for pedestrians where a sign read : The Ontario Power Company.

“It looks longer than two football fields,” I said.

“I think there’s probably even more of it built into the rock,” Lucas said, ringing the bell next to the door.

“Hey, my hiccups are gone,” I said to Adrienne. She smiled but then squeaked with another internal convulsion.

The door opened and Lucas launched into an exchange with the workman, describing our misplaced adventure, asking if the man knew anything about getting over to the other plant. He eyed us kids bobbing around in the background, trying to keep warm, and he seemed disturbed every time Adrienne hiccupped.

We were invited in and the heavy door closed. All that was bright and sunny about the day was gone and we were soon waiting in an office area, surrounded by high ceilings, dark filing cabinets and safety posters. It looked a lot like an engineer’s office Dad took me to near the Tappan Zee Bridge, except this one had the permeating smell of warm motor oil.

A foreman appeared and introduced himself simply as Brian. He removed his helmet and tossed down a clipboard while he listened to Lucas plead his case once more — how we three had helped him with directions and that made us miss the bus to Adam Beck number two.

“Science field trip, you say?” Brian said, scratching his forehead and smoothing back loose strands of hair over the shiny balding dome of his head.

“Hey, Petrov!” he shouted into one of the windowless offices connected to the central space, “Is that inspector still here?”

Helene’s eyes went wide.

“Da,” said Petrov. “John Bramley arrived twenty minutes already. His truck is down at back, but he is starting next level. You want I will intercom to him?”

“Nah, it’s okay, Petrov, thanks,” said Brian. He looked at us, dubiously. “When John’s done here, he’ll be headed over to the AB2. Probably give you a ride, if you don’t mind the mess in the truck.”

“No, we wouldn’t mind at all,” said Helene.

“In the meantime, how’d you like to have a field trip in our own plant this afternoon?” the foreman asked. We were all excited, although not for the reasons he might have thought.

“That sounds very nice of you, man,” Lucas said, smiling.

“Give Adam Beck a little run for its money, eh?” Brian said. “They might be bigger, but we did it first, up here.”

“Right on!” said Lucas, shifting around a bit. “If you’re sure you don’t mind helping out the kids, I’d really better get back.”

“Not a problem,” Brian said. “I’ll just go and get some hard hats that might fit.”

He left and I realized Lucas was going to make this a fast goodbye.

“Okay, Mr. Trinder,” he said, “You take good care of these ladies.”

“I will,” I said. He mocked a punch to my chin but shifted, shaking my hand instead. Adrienne shook his hand, too, and did a half-curtsy. He held out his hand to Helene but she stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek on one side and then moved to the other. She held him in place while she whispered something in his ear. It made him smile.

He walked to the door and turned at the last second.

“Next time we meet, you’re going to tell me how you made that rainbow in the mist,” he said to me, smiling. He paused just long enough to see if he was going to get an answer.

“Just depends on how you look at it,” Helene said, shrugging.

Lucas nodded, waved and disappeared. I heard the banging of the heavy door and knew he was gone.

“We have to stop the inspector from getting into the other plant,” Helene said urgently, “I say we delay as long as we can.”

“What did you say to Lucas?” I asked.

“I just told him he did a good thing,” Helene answered. “He can decide which thing I was talking about. And he needed a woman to tell him something nice.”

“A young woman, at least,” corrected Adrienne, her eyes narrowing a bit. Helene gave her a slight sneer and shrugged.

“He and Bridget were close,” she said, “until she moved back in with her parents after graduation. No sense in helping him to get over here if he’s just going to jump back into the same river from the other side. Dead is still dead.”

Adrienne shuddered and looked away. She turned distraction into action by pulling three pens and a pad of paper from the top of a cabinet. She tucked the pad under her arm just as though it had always been hers, and then gave us each a pen. I reckoned they were props for us to look studious.

The inspector, Mr. Bramley, seemed quite surprised and a bit disturbed at the idea of having visitors observing him.

“These three have come to inspect the inspector,” joked Brian, trying to lighten the mood.

“Quite unexpected, for the inspector,” Mr. Bramley said sharply, pursing his lips and returning to his chart. He was a small and wiry man, hardly taller than Adrienne. The skin on his face looked weathered and creased into deep lines as he spoke.

“Are you from New Zealand?” Adrienne asked. Mr. Bramley looked surprised.

“Auckland, yea,” he said, never looking up, “Been there?”

“I know someone from Christchurch,” she said.

It was enough of an icebreaker to get a conversation going. At the same time, Helene began asking Brian about the plant. When had it been built? 1905, by an American firm. Where did the water come from? An inlet near Dufferin Island, one mile upstream. How did the water travel? Through two steel and one wooden conduit pipes bound with wire hoops.

The volley of questions and answers turned more technical, and Mr. Bramley began to jump in with his own responses, sometimes disagreeing with Brian’s simple answers. Adrienne was equally smart with her questions about penstocks, generators, horsepower and kilowatts. I was feeling pretty dumb by comparison, especially since my Dad was an engineer. How was it that this future girl knew so much about power generation?

I might have felt like a useless set of training wheels on a ten-speed bike, but I did notice that the intense interest was being rewarded. We spent time at most every panel we came to, and we were guided into each consecutive chamber and corridor. Brian had to excuse himself when he got a call from the office, yet Mr. Bramley now seemed more than happy to continue with such attentive young people. The fact that two of them were pretty girls likely helped as well.

I had occupied my nerves by playing with the bottle cap in my pocket. After squishing the cork and digging my fingernail into it until it started to break apart, I’d moved on to trying to bend the cap. They used surprisingly strong metal, I thought.

Throughout the tour, Adrienne had been writing on the notepad, almost frantically, even going so far as to draw sketches of the penstocks being described.

“You can’t take the notes with you,” I whispered to her.

“I know,” Adrienne responded, evidently frustrated by the reality of it. “I’m pretty good at remembering as long as I write it down once.”

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“I’m actually doing a paper about hydro electricity in school,” she said. “This is good historical background.”

“Cool,” I said. It had never occurred to me. I’d thought about studying things in school to help out with Drifts, but not the other way around. I was about to ask her for a piece of paper since I’d lost my clipboard somewhere but, truthfully, I was starting to feel an odd pressure in my head.

I was aware of the mechanical hum as soon as we left the office. And when we entered the vast cavern where the generators were located, the whir and thrum was more than just audible. I felt it pulsing through my whole being.

“My Lord! It’s enormous!” remarked Helene.

All three of us were slack jawed as we took in the view. Only the upper halves of the giant disks were visible, and even at that, they were at least three times my height. Huge belts attached around them and appeared to be straining to hold the crazed velocity of the wheels in place. There was row upon row of them, spinning with hissing force. It looked like a colossal sea monster was snaking its way through square openings in the shiny floor.

The more generators we passed, the louder the noise and the queasier I felt. I swallowed hard and fidgeted with the bottle cap. I’d managed to get a bit of a bend in it earlier, but now my strength seemed to have left me. I took it out to get a smell of the Orange Crush, but it was almost gone.

“Could I… get a drink of water?” I asked, bracing myself on one of the safety rails that surrounded the pits for the generators.

“Certainly,” Mr. Bramley said, almost surprised that I was still present. He pointed to an archway in the wall leading to an interior corridor. I was vaguely aware that Helene was with me. She was saying something about time… what time it was. I couldn’t focus.

The next thing I knew, Helene was hovering over me and slapping my face, lightly and repeatedly.

“Wake up! Liam!”

“What?”

“You passed out,” she said. I felt cold water dripping from her fingers, touching my temples and forehead.

“I do that,” I said, aware that I was slurring.

“You’ve got to wake up,” she urged. “If the inspector sees you like this, they’re going to send for help or an ambulance and then we lose him. He’ll be gone.”

I knew I didn’t care very much, but I had a general sense that this wouldn’t be a good thing. I fought to stay conscious while she lifted me up to the water fountain. The water felt so good… in my mouth, on my cheeks. It helped.

“It’s the noise,” I said, “Too much… that constant pounding. Thumm, thumm, thumm, thumm.”

“It’s the electricity!” Helene said. “We gotta get you out of here. Darn it. I think it’s just a bit too soon. Can you hold it together for just a couple of minutes?”

I nodded and took another long swig of water. My head was pounding. She got me to stand up straight and did her best to walk me back to Adrienne and Mr. Bramley without appearing as though the two of us were a ventriloquist act.

“Liam would so love to see the Falls,” she said.

I felt my eyes fluttering but I nodded as best I could.

“Do those doors lead outside?” she asked. “It would be such a wonderful perspective.”

It was the most welcomed blast of cold air I’d ever felt. The thunderous noise enveloped us the second we stepped outside. There was only eight yards of massive rocks to the river and immediately to the right of us, the massive white curtain of icy froth rose about 80 feet straight up to the crest of the Horseshoe Falls. It was all pouring down towards us and I was in awe.

“Better now?” Helene asked, still holding my arm. She was genuinely concerned. I smiled. The shift had been nearly instantaneous.

“Like turning off a switch,” I said, still staring into the water.

“The brain is electrical but the heart is magnetic,” she said. “You must be a sensitive. Plugged in more to your heart than most. Just an overload. You weren’t holding anything metal, were you?”

“No,” I said, pulling the bottle cap from my pocket, “just this.”

Helene looked exasperated but she was distracted by the appearance of Mr. Bramley calling Adrienne back inside.

“It’s quarter past four and he says he needs to get along,” Adrienne yelled out over the roar. She followed her inside, and rushed along the wall of the plant, trying to catch up with him. Helene muttered about trying to delay him, but I was just as happy to make the bee-line for the door.

When we emerged, Mr. Bramley had thrown a briefcase into a big white pickup truck and returned to close the door back into the plant.

“It’s getting dark,” I said, “isn’t it late enough already?”

“Not this far north,” Helene said, turning to Adrienne. “Take off your scarf,” she commanded. “Hide it in your pocket.”

“Why?”

“Say you lost it and go back inside,” Helene continued. “Gives us five minutes. We have to stall him.”

“It happens just an hour from now,” Adrienne said. “Do you really think he’d have time to find the switch?

“It’s too close. Just go!”

Adrienne had already raised her collar and slid the scarf off while her back was turned to the power plant. The three of us slowly walked back to where Mr. Bramley was waiting, stopping to ogle the sites and point out something else—anything—that caught our eye. The height of the rock cut above us; another view back to the Falls. When we got to the truck, Adrienne went into action, faking that she was upset about her scarf. Mr. Bramley turned off the engine and slammed the door.

“Alright,” he said, transforming back into the gruff little man we had first met. “I’ll take your hard hats back while we’re at it.”

As the back door closed, Helene shoved me lightly towards the rear of the truck.

“Flatten the tire,” she said.

“Seriously?”

“You heard me… do it!”

She looked around and then went to the front right tire, farthest away from the plant. I looked up but didn’t see any windows or anyone watching us. The driveway out of here was a single lane of pavement that rose up at a drastic angle, hugging the cliff. Barely what anyone could call a road.

“I don’t want us to fall off while we’re driving away,” I said, anticipating what I pictured happening as a result of bad planning.

“Then make sure it’s really flat,” she hissed. “Hurry!”

I dropped to my knees by the tire. In the shadow of the gorge right next to the plant, there was even less light. The valve was at the 10 o’clock position as the truck stood. The cold had felt good at first, necessary even. But I was aware that it was now making my fingers stiff and my body shiver. I couldn’t use the gloves.

I fidgeted to remove the plastic screw cap.

“This isn’t right,” I said.

“You don’t think it’s right? Or it doesn’t feel right?” Helene said, slamming her fist into the side of the tire. “Damn thing won’t budge.”

The protective cap fell to the ground amidst loose gravel. My finger couldn’t reach up into the interior valve and I didn’t have a nail handy. I plucked the bottle cap from my pocket, put it on the ground and stomped on it. It bent fully in half, which was perfect.

The next problem was the discovery that truck tires hold a lot of air. I kept waiting for the truck to descend, keeping one eye out on the back door of the plant. A bright security light flicked on, glaring up at the road and making it hard to see the entrance door.

“What you are doing?” Helene said.

“I’m letting the air out, like you asked me to,” I said annoyed.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You’ve done enough and I need that thing. Come on!”

I’d wanted it to look like a black pancake so there’d be no question when he got in to drive. I followed Helene around to the front tire but she was impatient and when she grabbed at my bottle cap, it fell.

“Where is it?

I looked but couldn’t see. The shadows under the truck where even deeper.

“Reach around with your hand,” Helene said, indicating for me to join her.

“What are you doing?” It was a deep, Kiwi accent.

I was sprawled on my stomach and Helene was on all fours. Adrienne was standing timidly beside him, holding her scarf in her hands.

“Looking for the bottle cap,” I said, feeling compelled to finally come clean.

“The what?”

“The bottle cap… or broken glass,” Helene said, standing. “If you hadn’t noticed, you’re almost flat.” Mr. Bramley checked and was appalled at the sagging rear tire.

“We figured there had to be a broken bottle, or a nail here somewhere,” she continued.

“Sonnuva…” Mr. Bramley completed the expression with his foot, bouncing it into what was left of his tire pressure. He marched around and opened the back hatch and crawled up, kicking around the contents until he located a toolbox. When it didn’t contain what he was looking for he slammed it shut.

The three of us had congealed back into a group and nervously waited for the next onslaught. Mr. Bramley, however, was better mannered than he might have been. He drew in a deep breath and then made a clicking sound in his mouth.

“Wait right here,” he said, hopping down from the truck bed. “It’s going to take too long to fix,” Mr. Bramley yelled back as he headed for the plant. “I’m going to call over to AB2 and see if they’ll send someone else to come fetch you.”

“Oh, no need… we can wait,” said Helene.

Mr. Bramley was too distant and the roar of the Falls was too loud. He might have said something like, “Promise is a promise.” He never looked back and the door shut too quickly. We stood for a moment, looking at each other with wide eyes.

“I’m fresh out of ideas,” Adrienne said.

“I know… Run!” said Helene, spinning on the spot and heading for the driveway.