TO FACE THE TIGER

Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer

"There comes a time when one must turn and face the tiger."
Kwai Chang Caine


Approximately 1,590,000 gallons of water flow over Niagara Falls every second. From where I stood on the deck of the MAID OF THE MIST, I could have sworn it was all falling on me. I pulled the hood of the raincoat further forward over my face, trying in vain to shield my already splattered glasses, but that didn't do much good. Damp and uncomfortable though I was, all that water still made for an impressive sight, as the little boat chugged gamely into the turbulent pool inside the broad curve of the Horseshoe Falls. The much smaller American Falls with its rubble-strewn base hadn't been nearly as overwhelming as this. Here we were, surrounded by walls of crashing white water, with the noise of the torrent shouting its wordless cry into our ears.

I looked sideways at Kwai Chang Caine and wondered what he was thinking as he stood there next to me, both hands resting on the railing while his head was cocked back, staring up as if he could see the top of the Falls through the cloud of moisture hanging over us. He hadn't bothered to pull up the hood of his raincoat, so his rather thin hair was thoroughly soaked and plastered to his head. He didn't seem to mind being wet, though. He had this sort of peaceful, lost-in-space look on his face. For some reason, that annoyed the hell out of me.

Looking back on it, I can see that my irrational sense of annoyance was the first sign that the darkness was returning to my soul, after the brief respite I had been granted. At the time, I figured I was just overtired and out of sorts, after having driven all the way from Cape Cod to Niagara Falls with only a few hours of uncomfortable sleep in my car.

Some of you may perhaps remember my previous account of how I had offered Caine a ride just outside Provincetown and traveled with him to the bridge at the end of the Cape, where I had planned to jump off and end my life, but didn't. You may remember how the two of us fought off some gay-bashers along the way. (Don't get the wrong idea; they weren't after Caine. I'm the gay guy they were trying to bash, and I've got the bruises to prove it. And, okay, Caine did most of the above-mentioned fighting off, not me.)

At any rate, he told me he was headed for California and I had more or less decided to take him there, since I had nothing better to do with my life at the time anyway. So what were we doing in Niagara Falls? Well, it was late summer and I had originally chosen a northern route rather than face the heat of the South. Cutting through Canada and back into Michigan looked interesting. I'd never been to Niagara Falls, so I decided that would be our first stopover. Caine didn't have any objections. After all, it was my car.

It might have been better had I chosen another way, but I didn't, so there we were playing tourist on the MAID OF THE MIST, at the foot of Horseshoe Falls, at my instigation.

And I was annoyed, because he seemed to be at peace with the world, while I wasn't. I looked up, trying to see whatever it was he saw, but that only allowed more water to splatter my glasses. An eerie feeling stole ever me, as I stared up at the cataract. Within all the violence and chaos of the rushing water, there did seem to be a kind of peace to be found. I wondered idly what it would be like to go over the Horseshoe Falls. Immersed in that wild water, it would take only a moment to plunge over the brink. Much nicer than falling through thin air off a bridge. Death would be quick, and not overly painful. There was a deep pool at the base of the Horseshoe, unlike the American Falls, with its fringe of boulders and rubble.

The fretful wail of a baby grated across my fantasy of oblivion and peace, pulling me back to the present reality of a boat full of tourists. Not far from where we stood, a young mother tried vainly to quiet her infant's screams, while a toddler pulled at the edge of her raincoat, insistently demanding attention.

"Damn kids," I muttered. "They shouldn't be allowed out in public until they're civilized."

"It is the -- nature -- of a baby to cry," Caine said softly.

Did I detect a note of admonishment in his voice? What gave him the right to lecture me about babies?

Even as I tried to think of a snappy comeback, he walked over and hunkered down next to the toddler, drawing the boy's attention away from his mother and allowing her to deal with the infant. Over the rush of the water, I couldn't hear what Caine said to the child. I was actually quite surprised that the woman didn't make any objection to this stranger talking to her child. She didn't even seem to mind when Caine lifted the toddler in his arms, holding him up high so the youngster could get a better view of the tumbling water.

A sickish feeling stabbed through my heart as I watched Caine with the child. I didn't know why -- and I didn't want to know why -- but the fond look on his face and the way he seemed able to devote his entire attention to the boy disturbed me greatly.

I turned my back on them. I'd rather watch the Falls.

The baby finally shut up, but Caine held the child for the rest of the trip, relinquishing him to his mother only after we'd disembarked.

"I thought we were here to see the sights, not to baby-sit," I said sourly to my companion as we headed back to the parking lot to find my car.

"You -- do not like -- children?"

"No, I -- do not like -- children," I retorted, mimicking his odd manner of speaking.

My attempt at sarcasm must not have penetrated, since he merely said, "That is most -- unfortunate."

"Humph," was my only reply. All this talk of children was
making me uncomfortable, so I chose not to pursue the subject further.

We got a room at a little place called the Fairway Motel. We were both pretty damp from our boat trip and I desperately wanted to clean up, but I persuaded Caine that he should have first dibs on the shower. I wanted a chance to get my stuff out of the car without his seeing that I had only the one small travelling case, rather than a normal amount of luggage. (I had planned to jump off a bridge, remember? You don't need much of a wardrobe for that. I had brought only the clothes I expected to be buried in. But Caine hadn't known of my original intention, and I wanted to keep it that way.)

I had managed to purchase a sweatshirt with a tastefully small MAID OF THE MIST logo at the giftshop, but that was the only other shirt I had available, at this point.

I quickly unpacked my half empty valise into a dresser drawer. Minus the shirt on my back, which I had already used to replace the one that had been trashed by the gay-bashers, I had one complete change of clothing. Plus the contents of my toiletries case, of course. (Did you really expect a gay guy to go anywhere, even to his own death, without brush, comb, etcetera?)

That done, I inspected my face in the mirror. Could have been worse, all things considered. The swelling had gone down quite a bit. I turned my head this way and that, considering the damage from all angles. My left cheek was a mottled purple, heading for black and blue, but the effect wasn't too gruesome. I might have simply walked into something, as far as anyone could tell.

Stripping off my wet shirt, I checked out my ribs. There was a very dramatic and colorful bruise spreading from my mid-section to almost under my right arm. Gingerly, I prodded the discolored spot, taking an experimental deep breath at the same time. That caused me to wince, but, once again, it could have been a lot worse. (Would have been a lot worse, if Caine hadn't intervened while they were beating me.) A couple of ribs had doubtless been cracked, but there wasn't much to be done for broken ribs, as long as they weren't badly misaligned. Given time, they'd heal.

I was still inspecting myself in the mirror when Caine came out of the bathroom, wearing only his trousers. Years of appraising other men's bodies led to my first reaction: not bad for someone his age, but he could stand to lose a little weight. Then I realized I was standing there with my arms bare and he couldn't help but see the network of criss-crossed scars that I normally concealed beneath long sleeves.

It was certainly too late to pull on my shirt. I was about to turn away and hope he hadn't noticed, but then I caught a glimpse of his arms and hesitated just a moment too long, staring at them.

Tattoos? Not quite. Scars? But scars don't usually come in the shape of stylized animals.

Betrayed by my own curiosity, I had lost my chance to get
out of this gracefully.

However, Caine seemed neither surprised nor particularly self-conscious over my brief lapse of courtesy in staring at him. I guess he was used to that reaction. I didn't even have to ask. He saw the question on my face.

Turning his arms to the light so I could see them more clearly, he said simply, "This -- marks me as a Shaolin priest."

"Oh. Okay." Whatever that was. Sounded like some kind of oriental stuff. No, wait. I did know what that was. I remembered some stories Bobbie Ling, my long-ago Chinese lover, had once told me, and the Bruce Lee movies he had dragged me to see.

(Bobbie. I hadn't thought of him in a long time, but I missed him still. If only I hadn't been so jealous. If only I hadn't held onto him so tightly. If only -- Cut the crap, Jeremy. "If only" doesn't count. You of all people should know that.)

Back to the present, and Caine standing there, claiming to be something out of a Chinese fantasy. Well, that Shaolin business certainly would explain the way he could fight. But the way Bobbie had told it, those were just stories and legends, based only loosely on reality. Such people weren't real. And they certainly didn't sit beside you in your car, or share a room with you at the Fairway Motel.

Or did they?

At the same time that I was trying not to stare at the symbols on his arms, Caine was gazing at my own bare arms with a speculative look on his face. Well, what could I say? Imitating what he had done, I turned to the light so the crisscross pattern of thin white scars was clearly visible and said brusquely, "This marks me as a failed suicide."

There. Answer that, priest. If you can.

He came to stand in front of me and looked closer before replying matter-of-factly, "You -- did not cut -- in the right places. The arteries are -- easier to reach --" He drew one finger lightly over the old scars, then down closer to my hand -- "here, by your wrists."

I pulled away from him. "Yeah. I found that out when I didn't die."

"Are you so sure -- that you truly wanted to die?"

"I did, at the time," I answered.

The razor blade had been in my hand before I'd thought about it. I couldn't even see where it was that I was slicing, through the tears in my eyes, but when one arm hurt too much, I had switched to the other one. Even then, I didn't have the guts to cut deeply enough to do any real damage. Afterwards, a couple of weeks on a psyche ward taught me never to so much as mention the word "suicide" where a doctor might hear me.

"Why -- did you wish -- to die?" Caine asked, when I didn't say anything more.

"It's -- kind of a long story."

"I am -- listening." He sat down on one of the beds, pulling his legs up beneath him tailor-fashion.

Part of me wanted to tell him, wanted desperately to have
his understanding, if not exactly his approval. But another, nastier part of me bristled at his offer.

"You may be listening, but I'm not talking! You sound like a goddamn shrink. They listen real good, but they don't help much. Oh yeah, they can give you drugs that make you feel better, but does that really help? They can't solve your problems, but they sure can listen."

"Sometimes there is -- nothing -- anyone can do for another person -- except listen," Caine said, apparently unaffected by my outburst.

"Well, that isn't enough!"

"Jeremy, -- what -- would be enough?"

I hate it when someone asks a question I can't answer. What did I want from the poor man, anyway? Could he make the past as if it hadn't happened? Could he give me a new life? Of course not.

Shit, I'd be satisfied if he could just make the darkness go away. Even a little bit would help. But he couldn't know about that, and I didn't want to tell him.

"I'm sorry. I had no right to explode at you." I purely hate to apologize, but I'll do it if it's absolutely necessary.

The only response I got was a shrug. Okay, he wasn't angry, but he was still sitting there expectantly.

"It was a long time ago that I slashed my wrists. It doesn't matter anymore."

The look in his eyes clearly said, "Sure. Tell me another one," but he said nothing out loud. He didn't have to. I squirmed anyway.

Why was I letting him get to me like this? What did it matter what he thought? He was just a homeless drifter I'd picked up along the road.

"It's none of your business," I replied gruffly. I stomped into the bathroom, closed the door, and took my shower, leaving him sitting cross-legged on the bed.

When I came out of the bathroom later on, he was still in the same position, his eyes closed and his hands resting on his knees.

I lay down across the other bed, figuring to rest my eyes for a few minutes, and promptly fell asleep. When I awoke, the room had gotten dark.

Caine was still sitting there.


We had supper at a Chinese restaurant not far from the motel. I hadn't had Chinese food since Bobbie left me. Just hadn't had any reason to, I guess.

Although I used to be good at it, my fingers felt strangely shaky and uncoordinated when I picked up the chopsticks that night. Too many memories connected to the tactile sensation of holding those little wooden sticks. Too many meals in too many similar places, with the omnipresent red-and-black decor, painted screens, and fancy lanterns. Too many evenings spent gazing into Bobbie's black eyes.

When I dropped the same piece of pork for the third time in a row, Caine said without the slightest hint of amusement in his voice, "I believe they would -- bring you a -- fork if you wished."

"No, I can do it," I snapped.

When I went on to drop the chunk of pork in my lap, he had the good grace not to smile.

I can be very stubborn at times. Summoning all my resolve, I struggled manfully through the rest of my dinner, rice and all, with the damn chopsticks.

Afterwards, we walked down the street to see the Falls from another perspective. At night they shine multi-colored lights on the water. The colors shift slowly, making for a truly spectacular light show. The effect was better on the American Falls, because the perpetual mist from the higher and more powerful Horseshoe tended to obscure the details.

As I leaned forward against one of the stone blocks that anchor the metal railing along the edge of the walkway, the changing panorama of colors gave a surreal and dreamlike feeling to the entire scene. Here was the raw power of plunging water, painted into harmlessness by the pastel magic of 24 huge carbon arc lights. Above the torrent, the lights of the city on the American side glittered on the turbulent rapids, throwing white diamonds above the colored lace of the waters.

For a brief moment, I was caught up in the strange beauty of the scene.

"Lovely, isn't it?" I remarked.

"I -- do not understand -- the reason for the colors. Is it not -- beautiful enough -- without them?"

He was spoiling my already fragile mood.

"They make it prettier," I replied shortly.

"They are -- illusion."

My mind did a backflip and the scene seemed to shift before my eyes. It became all surface prettiness, hiding the treacherous reality of rocks and plunging destruction. The huge boulders, piled almost half the height of the American Falls in some places, suddenly became the sordid reality upon which our pretty-colored dreams are smashed and shattered. Maybe Caine could look this reality in the face and find it beautiful, but I couldn't. I liked the illusion better, but, once lost, I couldn't call it back.

His unruffled attitude of peace and tranquility was starting to get to me again. Why couldn't I be like that, instead of being driven crazy by my own restless thoughts? Or was he, like the lights, just illusion: a semblance of calm and courage, but truly just as vulnerable to despair as anyone else?

An idea occurred to me then, and it wasn't a particularly nice idea. But I never said I was nice, did I? When the darkness comes down on your soul, you tend to lash out at whatever's nearby.

Caine was nearby.

I was going to break him down somehow. If I could make him know the despair that haunted me, make him acknowledge the sheer hideousness of life, I felt I'd win some crazy bet with the universe and I could die happy.

Yeah, that's right. I was thinking about dying again, and I knew just how I wanted it to happen. By now you're probably convinced I'm crazy. Well, perhaps I was, at the time. I'm not making excuses; I'm just trying to make you understand.

But why did I feel I had to involve Kwai Chang Caine in my fatal wager? Maybe it was just because he was there, or maybe it was something more. Consider this:

I was worried to distraction because I had no job prospects for the future -- but I had $10,000 in cash stashed in my car, my life's savings, such as it was, while Caine -- didn't have any money at all and didn't seem to care. I was getting old -- well, maybe 50 isn't exactly ancient, but it's bad enough, especially if you're gay, while Caine -- hard to tell for sure, but he was certainly older than I was.

But it was more than just that. I felt somehow that the world had no place for me. I didn't fit in anywhere, didn't belong anywhere. Lonely? Perhaps. But it wasn't the kind of loneliness that would go away if someone offered to buy me a drink. It was an existential loneliness, a spiritual loneliness, if you will. There was just nothing out there for me, nothing worth having. I was a child standing in the cold, face pressed to the window watching all the happy people at the party inside, but unable to enter because I hadn't been considered worthy of an invitation.

Gak! I choke on my own self-pity even as I write this, but that's exactly how it felt. The outcast, the misfit, the tormented soul howling outside the gates of paradise.

While Caine -- well, if there was someplace he fit in, I couldn't imagine where it would be. But what galled me was that he didn't particularly seem to care.

His very sense of peace mocked and infuriated me.

One day. I'd give myself one day. If I could make the darkness touch his soul and destroy that peace by nightfall tomorrow, then I'd know I was right: life really was meaningless and I'd be free to die. If I couldn't -- well, maybe I'd just have to go on living a while longer.

Yes, I know. It was a crazy bet. But I wasn't quite sane that night, as I've already told you.

As the colors shifted over the face of the Falls, I turned to Caine and said brightly, "I got an ides. Wanna hear it?"

He looked sideways at me and inclined his head a fraction. I took that as an invitation to proceed.

"How about if we spend another day here? I could use more time to rest, and there are some things I'd like to see."

"Those -- brochures -- you picked up at the restaurant?"

"Yeah." I smiled. "Come with me tomorrow and see the sights, then we'll hit the road again the next day. Or are you in such a big hurry to get to California?"

"You -- truly intend to go that far?"

"Perhaps. I'm not sure yet." Come the day after tomorrow, if it happened that I was still alive to see it -- yeah, maybe I would take him where he was going.

Caine nodded. "I am not -- in such a big hurry as that, Jeremy. I will -- stay with you."

"Good," I replied, turning back to watch the Falls fade
from purple to yellow.

You don't know what you just agreed to, priest. Not by long shot.

The darkness was closing in on me again, and I had the feeling it was going to get real dark this time.


By the next morning, I had laid out the plans for the day. I got us tickets on the aptly-named People Mover, which I can best describe as a fleet of tandem buses that do nothing but follow a round-trip route past the most popular tourist attractions.

Caine didn't say much. He just sort of went along with me. I really couldn't tell if he was interested in all this or merely humoring me. Not that it mattered one way or the other, as long as he was there.

He sat looking out the window, calmly studying the scenery as it passed, until I nudged him and announced, "This is our stop."

I led the way out of the bus and across an observation platform overlooking a deep gorge, where I stopped at the edge and turned to my companion.

"Okay, here's our first thrill of the day. What do you think?"

Caine glanced down and out over the railing to the sheer drop before us, where a garish yellow and red contraption hung suspended from cables above the turbulent waters of the river below.

For those of you who have never seen it, the so-called Spanish Aerocar runs back and forth over a sharp bend in the Niagara River, where a whirlpool is created by the clashing currents some 250 feet below. Spanish only because the original cable car was built in Spain, it is definitely not a ride for the faint-hearted. Nevertheless, the rather flimsy-looking open car, held aloft by nothing more than 6 slender cables, carries a constant stream of nervous tourists on ten minute round trips above the gorge. As far as I know, it has an excellent safety record, but it certainly doesn't look safe.

Myself, I've never been particularly afraid of heights. After all, it would have been highly unlikely that I'd even consider jumping off a bridge if I suffered from acrophobia, right? I'd have come up with some way to off myself while firmly on the ground, had that been the case.

"You wish us to go -- on that?" Caine asked, a hint of uncertainty in the soft question.

Ha! Got you! I thought with satisfaction. Something about this bothered him.

"Yeah. What's the matter, you scared of heights?" Not that I truly expected it to be that simple, of course. I just wanted to get him talking.

Leaning slightly forward over the railing, he stared straight down, not even looking at the cable car. "No," he said at last, "I -- am not."

Despite his words, there was an air of dejection about him that hadn't been there before. Something was clearly bugging him and I made up my mind to find out what it was.

"Good. Come on," I replied cheerfully, heading for the ticket booth.

It wasn't long before we were sitting on a bench on the aerocar as it glided out over nothing. All right, maybe I did feel a wee bit nervous about dangling in the air that way. Perhaps my hands did clutch pretty tightly around the edge of the seat when the entire thing swayed in a gust of wind.

Ignoring the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I stood up and walked over to the side of the car, determined to appear absolutely fearless.

Although! I had neither seen nor heard him move, Caine was right beside me. He stared straight down into the gorge, much as he had done earlier on the overlook. "Peter -- would not have liked this," he said in a voice so soft I wasn't sure I was supposed to have heard him.

"Peter?" I prompted.

He didn't answer right off. He glanced sideways at me, then down again.

"My -- son."

I thought back to the conversation we'd had in the car shortly after I'd first picked him up. "You said you had no family."

"I -- do not. Peter -- has been dead for many years."

And it still hurt. I could tell from his voice. This was a weak spot. It had to be.

"I take it he was afraid of heights?"

Caine smiled, as if at a fond memory. "Yes. Very much so."

I needed more info about this Peter person. Okay, get him to talk about it. But how? The cable car had almost reached the far side of the gorge, which meant the ride was close to being half over. Not really a lot of time to chat.

Caine continued to look down at the swirling river below us, a slight smile hovering on his lips. Must be thinking about his son. As the aerocar came to a stop with a bit of a jolt and reversed direction, he looked up curiously at the cable overhead. Then he went back to studying the emptiness below our feet.

How would I get him to tell me about Peter without its being obvious that I was drawing him out? What to say? Hmm.

"I had a child once myself," I confided. This brought his attention back from the void. He turned to me, with the closest thing to surprise that I had ever seen him show.

"But -- you are -- gay."

It was a question, not just a statement.

"Yeah, well, a lot of gay guys are entirely capable of making love to a woman." I shrugged, totally nonchalant. "They just prefer men. It isn't strictly either/or in many cases. It all depends on the person."

"Ah! I had not -- realized -- that."

Well, I had his attention now, didn't I? But this wasn't quite what I'd had in mind.

"What -- happened -- to your child?"

No, this wasn't the response I wanted. But what could I say?

"Her name was Cindy Jane. And as far as I know, she's
still alive. But I haven't seen her since she was five months old. That's when my wife found out I had a boy friend on the side and threw me out."

I could tell from the look on Caine's face that he expected me to say more, so I did. But it was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

"I never saw the baby again. My wife got sole custody and moved away. My daughter would be -- let's see now -- just about 25 years old. I wouldn't recognize her if she walked up and shook my hand."

Caine nodded slightly. "Peter would have been -- just a few years older than that. I do not know which loss is greater. I had Peter for twelve years before he died."

"At least I can still imagine Cindy Jane is alive and happy somewhere." Although for all I know, that may not be true. But I didn't say that last part out loud. The darkness was gathering in my soul for real now, and I didn't want to give it any more edge than it already had.

"That is -- a small enough consolation," Caine said. I felt that he somehow knew my unspoken thought as well.

As the cable car slid back into its original starting place, I decided this wasn't working out right at all. I was doing all the talking and I still hadn't learned anything about Peter, other than the fact that he had died as a child. Nevertheless, the mood had been established. I might yet turn this conversation in the proper direction.

Instead of heading directly for the People Mover after we'd gotten off the aerocar, I strolled casually around the overlook and leaned once again on the railing. Caine stayed close enough to me to be my shadow. Come to think of it, he always seemed to be right alongside me whenever I got near any sort of drop-off. Nah, must be my imagination. There was no way he could know the thing I had for heights.

"So tell me about Peter," I invited.

That was all it took. In his usual quiet, halting manner he told me the long story about a much-loved wife dying of a lingering disease, leaving him with a young son. Then it got weird. He raised the boy in a Shaolin Temple in California. (Okay, maybe they do have Shaolin Temples out there. Goodness knows, they've got just about everything else.) Life was good, until the Temple was destroyed some 15 years ago and the boy died in the fire. Since then, he'd been wandering around, searching for peace and some trace of his son's essence. (Uh -- run that last part by me again?)

By now, I was about halfway convinced that Caine had gone off the deep end. Maybe there had been a wife and child, as he claimed, but losing them may have been enough to push him over the edge. (But then, in another part of my mind, I really could picture this man in a Temple somewhere, teaching martial arts. Sometimes the line between the sublimely beautiful and the supremely ridiculous is very thin indeed, and it can be very hard to tell which side you're on.)

I was just congratulating myself on getting so much information out of my usually-silent companion when he closed one hand around my forearm. "Did you do -- this -- when you lost your family?"

Despite the intervening layer of fabric and the gentleness of his touch, I felt a faint ghost of the pain that underlaid the old scars on my arms. Oh yeah, it had hurt a lot, once I'd gotten over my first shock and had stood there staring at the blood oozing from the flesh I had sliced up so messily.

It didn't even occur to me to lie to Caine. Besides, he'd have known the truth from the look on my face and the way I had practically flinched away from his words.

"Yes," I replied, staring down at his hand on my arm. (And the wedding ring on his finger, still, after all these years. I had thrown mine into the ocean, in a fit of rage and grief.)

Why was this hitting me so hard all of a sudden? That had been years ago. I'd gotten over it, and gone on with my life.

"Did you wish to die -- because you were gay?"

The question was so far off base that it jerked me out of my self-pity. But it was a predictable assumption from a straight man.

"Of course not!" I retorted indignantly. "I've never regretted that and I don't regret it now. I wanted to die because I'd hurt the people I cared for, and I couldn't stand that."

Wait a minute, where had those last words come from? I hadn't even thought such a thing before, at least not in so many words. And now I had blurted it out to this almost-stranger? What was wrong with me?

"Being what you were -- how could you have done otherwise?"

"Damnit, I could have known better than to marry my wife in the first place! And I certainly should have known better than to father a child!"

"Will the past change because we -- could have -- done differently?"

I definitely didn't like this. I had to get him off my back, and fast.

"Pretty words, Caine. But they don't change anything. Don't tell me you never wished you could have saved your wife, or felt you should have saved your son."

He let go of my wrist and recoiled slightly, almost as if I'd slapped him. Good. That was what I had intended.

"What we -- sometimes feel -- and what we know to be true -- are not always the same."

"Bullshit! If you can't live it, don't preach it! I've heard enough foolish platitudes in my life. I don't have to listen to them from someone like you."

I turned my back on him and started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm again. Furious, I tried to pull loose, but that was about useless. I turned back to face him, ready to call him some choice names if he didn't get out of my face.

"Jeremy, -- look down," he said, before I could so much as open my mouth.

Huh? What did that have to do with anything? Somewhat reluctantly, I craned my neck forward enough to stare directly over the edge of the gorge.

"What -- do you see?"

"A whirlpool," I replied, exasperated at the obviousness of the answer.

"What is the -- nature -- of this whirlpool?"

"Uh --" Now he'd thrown me totally off track. I had to think back to the brochures I'd read for the answer to that one. "The conflicting currents from the river build up pressure in this cul-de-sac, and that forces some of the water down and underneath the incoming water. It comes up again --" I pointed to an especially turbulent spot downstream -- "over there."

"That which is on the surface -- is drawn down to the depths -- only to reappear somewhere else?"

I was mesmerized by the swirl of the water now. I could hardly pull my eyes away from it.

"Yeah," I replied, distracted.

"Does this not also happen -- within the soul? What comes to the surface may be anger, but was it not -- something else -- that was driven down into the depths?"

Damn him, anyway! He wasn't supposed to see that. No one was supposed to see the pain I'd kept carefully buried in my heart for all those years, along with the memory of my infant daughter's smile.

It wasn't easy, but I pulled myself away from the maelstrom of regret and sorrow that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Okay," I said at last, "I concede the point. You win this round."

He spread his hands and sort of shrugged. "It is not a contest."

Oh, isn't it? That's how much you know, priest, I thought viciously as we walked away from the overlook and went to wait for the People Mover.


"Okay, next stop," I announced. This time I was determined not to allow myself to be sucked into the past.

We got off at what used to be called the Table Rock scenic Tunnels but is now termed "Journey Behind the Falls." Elevators take you down almost to the base of the Horseshoe Falls, where there are tunnels and viewing portals behind the cataract, as well as an outdoor observation platform next to the base of the Falls. Everybody gets a free plastic raincoat (which they assure us is biodegradable, no less!) for protection from the spray.

I suppose it's inevitable that you get wet, if you seek to get an up-close and personal view of such a watery attraction, but this was the second time in as many days that I looked at the world through water-speckled glasses, while the dampness soaked through my shoes and made my trouser cuffs sog dismally around my ankles as I walked. The concrete pavement of the observation platform was one solid puddle. Caine had already slipped out of his sandals and was walking around barefoot. If the day had been cooler, it would have been uncomfortable but as it was, it was rather nice. The sun came and went behind a thickening scatter of gray clouds, casting the wall of plunging water next to us now in shade, now in dazzling brightness.

Tourists oohed and aahed and snapped pictures of each other, but I did my best to ignore that. The steady roar of the Falls filled my ears. I won't deny that it was beautiful, in its own violent way. The ever-changing tumble of frothy water coming from above; the churning thunder and rising mist as it crashed to earth not far below where we stood.

I could almost reach out my hand and touch the deluge. Seen up close, that incredible force boggled me. Yet it was caused by nothing except height, and the mysterious attraction we name gravity.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?" I remarked.

Caine nodded. " 'Nothing is weaker than water, but when it attacks something hard or resistant, then nothing withstands it and nothing will alter its way.' "

Had to be another one of those quotes he was so fond of, judging by the way he said it without as much hesitation as usual.

"The Tao Te Ching again?" I hazarded.

"A -- modern translation, yes."

I looked up to the top of the Falls, where the water just kept coming. Tons and tons of it. More than you could stop, more than you could ever hope to withstand. All the evil, all the agony, all the hopelessness of despair, flooded my soul with the irresistible force of that cataract.

What had Caine said: "Nothing will alter its way"? Yeah, that seemed about right.

He must have seen something of what I was thinking. Maybe it showed on my face. He put one hand on my shoulder.

"You can -- choose -- whether you view it from -- this angle, -- or look down at it -- from above."

Annoyed, I shook him off. "Damnit, Caine, it just isn't that easy!"

"No," he said, heavily. "You are right. It is not -- that easy."

That was my first real hint that I was getting to him. It recalled me to my purpose.

"Do you have any idea what it feels like when your life falls apart?" I demanded, knowing full well that I'd only be reminding him of the loss of his son. "When your dreams are dead and all you ever cared about is gone? Do you even begin to know how that feels?"

"Yes."

Double damn! He wasn't supposed to admit it so freely and look so vulnerable. Without thinking, I asked, "What do you do in such a case?"

"You -- go on."

"What for?" I sneered.

"Because -- sometimes -- that is all -- you can do."

"There are other possible courses of action," I said carefully. "After all, no life lasts forever."

He nodded. "All that lives -- must die. And death -- will come when it will. But do you not have -- better things to do -- than seek it out?"

I couldn't answer that. I couldn't even meet his eyes. At that point, I didn't have any better things to do, but I didn't want to tell him that. Not just yet.

My silence must have given away more than I wanted it to.

"Jeremy, -- you feel right now -- that all is hopeless. But does not the day -- follow the night? All things change."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing -- is real -- except change. All things carry within themselves their opposites. Without hope, -- there can be no despair. Without despair, -- there can be no hope."

I shook my head and turned away. That sounded good, but there was no feeling in my heart that my darkness would ever give way to light.

He took me by the shoulders and forced me to look at him. To this day, I can still see his face, framed against the cascading torrent behind him.

"Jeremy, -- the wheel turns. Nothing lasts forever."

"Death lasts forever," I murmured.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not. We cannot know -- even that -- for sure."

Okay. I wasn't ready to argue that one with him. I had no expectation of life after death, but there truly was no way to know for sure. After all, I wasn't dead. Yet.

He went on, perhaps encouraged by my silence.

"Your path -- is not clear now." He shrugged, still holding my shoulders. "That happens. You must wait. The way -- will appear."

I looked down, unable to meet his eyes any longer.

"I can't."

"You can."

I shook my head. Behind him, the water continued to fall, and the mist rose in rainbows as a shaft of sunlight pierced the gathering clouds.


I had chosen our last stop with great care. Just about half a mile above the Horseshoe Falls, there's an old scow that's been stuck on a shoal since 1918. The brochures tell of an exciting rescue of the two men who had been on the scow when it grounded, so close to plunging over the edge. Now it was just one more item to be pointed out to tourists, so they could shiver in vicarious fear over the almost-fate of the two men.

No People-Mover this time. I chose to walk along the road instead, with the hustle and tumble of the rapids not far to our left as we made our way upriver. There were intermittent patches of grass and trees between us and the river, but I found it hard to keep my eyes off the water. In the muted roar of the Falls, I seemed to hear it calling my name.

By the time we reached a point roughly opposite to the stranded scow, a fine drizzle had begun to fall from the darkening sky. I wasn't going to let a little water deter me from my purpose, though. I drew Caine's attention to the scow, which from here rather resembled a small island overgrown with vegetation, and went on to tell him of its history as we walked across the damp grass and came to a halt a few steps from the river that seemed in such a hurry to throw itself over the Falls.

All too soon, I ran out of words and simply stood staring at the rushing water.

I was a downed branch, caught in the current. I could no more stand against the flood of despair than I could stand against the Niagara River. Why even bother to try? There was nothing in life that held any interest. The glitter, if it had ever been there, had long ago faded. It wasn't a case of losing everything and anything I'd ever loved. I could have handled that. No. I had lost the capacity to love at all.

I'm not talking about sex or romance. I'm talking about the essential love of life itself. There was no joy left to me, but only endless days of boredom and trivia. No dreams, no hopes, no glory, no grandeur. A poor pathetic aging fairy, who couldn't find enough meaning in life to make it worth living. I was a joke, a figure of fun, a failure of any ideal I'd ever had.

Why should I bother to go on, as Caine had insisted? Why should anyone? There was nowhere worth going on to.

Caine interrupted my dismal thoughts by asking softly, "Jeremy, -- is this not -- better -- than a bridge?"

Damn! Could this dude read minds or something?

"What are you talking about?" I asked warily.

"You have been -- looking into the abyss -- since we first met, -- have you not?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know -- exactly what I mean. You have been -- contemplating -- your death and searching for the time to invite it into your heart." He waved a hand at the river in front of us. "Would not this be -- an excellent place to die? It is so near -- so easy. Much better than that bridge on Cape Cod."

Huh? I'd never told him I'd intended to jump back then.

"You knew about that?"

He shrugged, the way he always did.

Yeah, maybe he had. And maybe he knew about this time too.

I looked out over the water. A couple of steps. That's all it would take. I'd be off the riverbank and into the chaos of foam and crystal -- and the rapids would have me, beyond return, beyond escape. I'd plunge to my death, before the horrified and fascinated eyes of the tourists. If that was the only drama I could make from my miserable life, at least it was something.

"Jeremy, -- can you not -- face the truth? You do not truly wish to die, you merely fear to live." His hands closed over my wrists, and his words came with less hesitation than usual. "You were not serious when you used the razor, or you would have cut deeper and in the right places. You were not serious about jumping off the Bourne Bridge, if you could be distracted from the attempt so easily by the novelty of my presence. And no matter what you may think you do not wish to die now."

"What would you know about what I want?" I demanded as I pulled away from him. "What do you know of the darkness that's eating away at me?"

For just an instant, there was a distance in his eyes, as if he were remembering something. Then he said, "Fear -- is the only darkness. And this darkness exists -- in everyone. It is -- part -- of us. You cannot -- destroy it, but only learn to live with it."

I shook my head and turned away from him.

He put his hands on my shoulders, pressing his thumbs into the tense muscles in my neck. Almost, I wanted to relax into that comforting touch. But that wasn't why I was here, standing in the drizzling rain and staring out over the river.

"Maybe I can't," I replied. "Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I just want you to leave me alone and let me get this over with."

"If that is what -- you want, why are you still here --talking to me?"

He kept on rubbing my neck as he waited for my answer. This simply wouldn't do. It felt too good.

"What -- do you fear?" he asked in that hypnotic voice.

"Nothing. I'm not afraid of anything."

"That -- is not the truth."

"All right! I'm afraid of the future in a world that doesn't want me and has no place for me."

"What else?"

"There's nothing else."

"Is there not? Look closer."

I did, and was surprised at what I saw. "Losing out to the darkness inside my soul."

"Ah!"

It's a good thing he was standing, behind me. I'd never have been able to say that to someone's face.

"Jeremy," he continued, "sometimes it is -- necessary to turn and face the tiger."

That threw me. "What are you talking about? What tiger?"

"The one that -- pursues you. The one that -- lurks -- in the darkness you so much fear. Close your eyes. Look into that darkness."

"No way."

"Look at it," he insisted. "what do you see?"

Okay, I looked. But I didn't like what I saw.

"I see myself," I admitted raggedly. "I destroy people. I've hurt everyone I ever cared about."

"Who have you destroyed?"

"Bobbie, who was once my lover. My wife. My daughter."

"You -- give yourself -- more power than you have. You do not know -- that you have destroyed them. Your daughter lives. Her life is -- different because you are not there. But you did not destroy her."

"Well, I sure didn't help her any!"

"It is -- not the same."

"No? Tell me you don't know what I mean. How do you feel about Peter?"

He froze, his fingers digging into my neck.

"I -- should have been able save him --"

"There are those I should have been able to save," I replied harshly, his spell broken at last. Wrenching free from his grasp, I turned to face him, backing away as he tried to follow me.

"Don't touch me," I snarled.

"I -- mean you no harm."

"Yes, you do," I hissed. "You're trying to make me doubt myself, with all this talk of facing things. You want to face some truth, Kwai Chang Caine? Then try this on for size."

A kind of rage I'd never known I could feel erupted from my heart and poured out of my mouth in a torrent of words, all directed at the man who had dared to get in my way.

"You're nothing but a pathetic old bum! You've wasted most of your life wandering around and doing nothing, a spaced-out freak pretending to enlightenment, who talks like a fortune cookie but doesn't practice what he preaches. You're pushing peace and non-violence, but you casually beat up those men who attacked us back on Cape Cod."

"That was -- self-defense," Caine interjected, but his voice lacked conviction. "I didn't want -- to hurt them."

"Oh, come off it! How many people have you beaten the shit out of over the years, despite your fancy words and pious platitudes? No one learns to fight like that and then doesn't use it."

He might have had an answer to that, but I didn't let him get it in.

"And yet, you've given up your entire life without a fight. You told me your Temple was destroyed -- and you just walked away, without trying to rebuild, with no consideration for the other survivors, because your precious son was dead. Am I supposed to admire that? How many times have you just walked away, Caine? How many other people have you left behind? If you'd truly wanted a family, you could have found another wife and had lots more kids by now. Don't you think it's about time you stop mourning for Peter and get on with your life? Fifteen years of searching for your son's essence? Get real! The boy is dead. There's nothing left of him but a rotting corpse. No, not even that. A pile of bones. Nothing you can do can change that. You can't find him. You can't bring him back. All you could possibly do is join him in death."

I ran out of words at last, and stood there at the edge of the river staring at Caine, waiting to discover the impact of my tirade on this paradigm of peace and tranquility.

His face barely changed expression, but I saw it in his eyes when the shadow fell over his soul. I'd finally gotten to him. The same horror and hopelessness that was destroying me had touched him also.

That was what I had wanted, wasn't it? Well, I'd done it. I'd gotten what I wanted -- only to find I didn't want it anymore. I'd hurt him all right, but it hadn't brought me any satisfaction. I only felt worse, if such a thing were possible. Caine was the one person in all the world who'd been nice to me and in return. I'd tried to destroy his peace. And perhaps succeeded.

Then I realized that I'd just done it again. I'd destroyed someone I cared about. (Him? You care about him? Well -- yeah.)

That was absolutely the last straw. Totally disgusted with everything I'd ever been or done, I flung myself backwards into the rapids.

Swirling coldness closed around me, but my feet struck a slippery rock bottom. I had expected the water to be deeper. I knew it was hopeless and I wanted to die, but apparently my stubborn body didn't realize that. I tried to stand, feet scrabbling on the rocks as my head broke the surface and I gasped in a mouthful of air and foam.

Although the water came only just above my waist, I couldn't fight the current. My feet were swept out from under me and I --

-- felt myself picked up by the back of my sweatshirt.

Caine was in the water too, hanging onto me with one hand while trying to stand up.

What the hell? Had I taught him enough about despair that he wanted to die too?

No, despite what I'd seen in his eyes, he wasn't here to commit suicide. He was trying to save me. I wanted to tell him not to bother, it wasn't worth it, and at the same time I wanted to thank him for seeing something in me that might be worth saving.

Then he managed to stand up, and pull me up with him.

How he kept his feet under him, I don't know. Yeah, he was taller and heavier than I am, but even so, no man should have been able to stand against that current, much less hold onto someone else.

Meanwhile, he was keeping me from my goal. I tried to get loose, but before I could slip out of my sweatshirt, he grabbed me from behind and pulled me back up against him, pinning my arms at my sides and effectively preventing me from struggling any more. Cursing and crying, I still tried vainly to get loose. I could feel the strain in his body as he fought to keep us both from being swept away in the torrent. There was no way he could keep this up for long. He'd have to let me go in order to save himself.

I glanced downstream, towards the thunder of the Falls and the dank mist that hung like a shroud above that deadly drop.

Caine had said I didn't really want to die, but he was wrong. Wasn't he?

Staring over the raging water, I knew there would be an end to fear, an end to it all. I'd never have to be a pathetic aging fairy, homeless and alone in an uncaring world.

But the price was steep: I'd never be anything any more. There were no further possibilities for me at the foot of the Horseshoe Falls. Whatever I'd done or failed to do in the past, there would be no chance for growth or change.

I'm no stranger to the face of death. I know what it looks like. I've buried too many friends to believe the undertaker's made-up illusion. But now, facing the imminent reality of my own body crushed and broken by the awesome power of the water, I seemed to see it anew.

Death is the animal lying freshly crushed on the roadway: raw meat, torn flesh, entrails spread obscenely on the asphalt. In and of itself, it is neither grace nor beauty. As a final escape for those tortured beyond endurance by the ills of the body, it might sometimes be welcome. There may even be honor in it, if you die for a cause.

I had no cause.

Caine had been right to ask if I truly wanted this. It sounded dramatic, heroic, and romantic, but the truth was raw meat and carrion. I wasn't ready to give up yet, no matter how miserable and wretched I might feel. This world was far too beautiful to leave, for no reason more weighty than my own self-pity and general funk.

All right, I didn't want to die, but I'd gotten us into this. It wasn't Caine's fault. I couldn't ask him to risk his life any further.

I stopped trying to get loose. "Save yourself," I yelled back over my shoulder, hoping he could hear me over the rush of the water.

"No." His voice held that same awesome calmness, but I could feel him trembling.

Okay, if he was determined to be a hero, this was no time to try to argue him out of it. Squirming around to face him, I locked my arms around his waist and gasped, "Okay, then save us both."

We were only a few yards from the riverbank, but those were a long few yards. He slipped once, but managed to get up again. To this day, I don't know how he did it. It took all my strength just to hold on to him.

The current slackened as we neared the bank. Caine hoisted me out of the water. I crawled up the grassy slope and collapsed on my face, gagging and coughing. A sharp pain in my side told me I'd done my injured ribs no good, but I pushed myself up on my elbows to look for my rescuer.

I didn't have to look far, as he was already kneeling next to me. He was out of breath and clearly exhausted, which only showed he wasn't invincible, after all.

Another fit of coughing hit me and I doubled over, clutching my chest. Caine eased me onto my back, his fingers carefully exploring my ribs.

"Jeremy, -- are you all right?"

I couldn't answer. It was too hard to breathe, and yet I needed more air.

"Lie still. Relax."

Yeah, right. When I couldn't get a lungful of air without feeling as if there was a knife stabbing into my chest?

"I -- can help you," he said. "Breathe slowly and gently."

The quiet reassurance in his voice cut through my incipient panic. Closing my eyes, I did my best to comply.

His hands were strangely warm where they rested on my chest. Maybe I was imagining it, but the pain seemed to lessen slightly. I held very still, concentrating on breathing without moving my ribs. The rain was coming down hard now, drops splattering on my upturned face. Good. I'd think about that sensation, rather than my ribs.

All this had happened in less time than it's taking me to describe it, but there was an elongated, almost slow motion, feel to it. Somehow, in those few moments, I had time for a lot of thoughts.

At some point while I lay there, it occurred to me that the rain had worked to my advantage: no one had been around to see what had happened. The last thing I wanted just now was an ambulance, with a bunch of cops asking difficult questions.

Hmm. If I was pleased by the lack of an ambulance, I must be feeling better. Yes. I could breathe now, the pain only a shadow of what it had been.

I slitted my eyes open and looked at Caine. He sat cross-legged, his head bowed and his eyes closed. But everything was blurred and out of focus. Uh-oh. Lost my glasses. Bummer, but at least I had a spare pair back in my car. When it occurred to me that my glasses were probably even now lying crushed and broken somewhere at the foot of the Horseshoe Falls, I shuddered. It could just as easily have been my body down there.

Or his, I thought, squinting to make out the face of the man who had, once again, rescued me.

Shit! I thought. This is becoming a habit!

He should have hated me, not risked his life to pull me from the river. Suddenly I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I no longer wanted to hurt this man.

I turned my head away from him as tears overflowed from my eyes and mixed with the chilly rain running down my cheeks.

Very carefully, I sat up.

Caine opened his eyes, instantly alert.

"Why?" I croaked hoarsely.

He waved one hand in the direction of the river.

"Jeremy, -- do you -- deserve -- that?"

I glanced at the blur of rain and rushing water. My mind could see the Falls, although my nearsighted eyes couldn't.

"No," I replied at last. "And neither do you."

Surprise widened his eyes ever so slightly.

"What I said to you before?" I went on. "I was angry and upset. I had no right to attack you like that. I can't claim to know what makes you tick, and I certainly can't judge you. I didn't mean it."

If it's possible for a man to look both absolutely calm and absolutely wretched at one and the same time, Caine did it. Then he looked away.

"I -- know. But there was -- some truth -- in your words."

So my carelessly-aimed barbs had sunk in deeper than I had thought. Cursing my ready tongue, I knew I had done it again. I had hurt someone -- but I had not destroyed him. No. He was sitting here in front of me.

For a change, I reached over and touched his shoulder.

"There was more truth in your words," I said. "I don't really want to die. I'm ashamed that I almost took you with me."

He shrugged. "If you truly wish to -- stop someone -- from leaping into the abyss, -- it may become necessary -- to stand next to him -- at the edge."

"Yeah. But if you do that, it's always possible they'll pull you in with them."

"Yes," he said simply. Rising to his feet in one fluid motion, he reached down a hand to help me up. "It is -- time -- we return to the motel, is it not?"

Now that he mentioned it, yeah. We were both soaking wet. I don't know about Caine, but I was cold, and getting colder by the minute as the rain continued to beat down on us. Noticing me shiver, Caine wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, but it didn't help much.

As we headed for the bus stop, we were fortunately no wetter nor more bedraggled than any other tourists caught out in the rain. The People Mover seemed blessedly warm in comparison. I slumped down into a seat and shut my eyes, thinking over what had just happened.

Did I really hate myself so much just because I had hurt other people? (Not "destroyed". As Caine had said, they went on with their lives, changed perhaps, but none of them were truly destroyed, least of all him.)

Was I not, in reality, a vicious, ravening monster, but only an ordinary person?

Oh, I'd read all that "I'm OK, you're OK" stuff a long time ago. But sometimes it's easier to believe if you hear it said by someone else. And just saying it is easy. How much better if someone can act on those words?

The truth is, we don't live in a vacuum and we can't pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, even if we want to. Much as we may want to proclaim our independence and strength, there is an unbreakable connection between the validation of others and your own self-esteem.

Caine hadn't made it all better and he hadn't made the darkness go away. But he'd made me see more clearly the nature of the beast that hid within it. That was half the battle right there. I was still terrified of the future and what it might hold. There was still the specter of old age and poverty looming before me. Nothing had changed --

-- except now I felt there might be a reason to go on, because someone else had faced that emptiness and despair and had chosen to go on anyway.

Yeah, okay. And maybe also because he'd thought that the continuation of my sorry life was worth the risk of his own.

Maybe all these things. Or maybe none of them. I only knew I didn't feel particularly like dying anymore. I thought I might just be able to hang in there and try to make my way through the rest of my life.

And Caine? Well, in some crazy way, he was the light I held against the darkness.


By the time we reached the Fairway Motel, I was literally stumbling from cold and exhaustion, the only thing keeping me on my feet being Caine's arm around my waist. At the door to our room, he turned to me, with an absolutely-dead-serious expression on his face that more than half scared me.

"Jeremy, -- you are -- finished -- with this now, -- are you not?"

I would have squirmed away, but he was still holding me.

"What do you mean?"

He gestured down the street towards the Falls.

"You will not -- attempt -- to walk this path again."

I bowed my head and shook it at the same time. "No, I guess I won't."

"That -- is not enough. You will give me -- your word."

"My word? You've got to be kidding. Since when is my word worth anything to anyone?"

"It -- is worth something -- to me."

It was? I looked up at him, meeting his eyes squarely before I replied, "I can't promise that, Caine. No one can say what they'll do in the future. But I will promise something else: if I'm ever tempted to try it again, I'll think back over what happened today. Is that good enough?"

He nodded ever so slightly, the intensity never leaving his eyes.

"You will -- remember this promise, Jeremy," he said softly. And then he did something strange. He slapped my face. (The unbruised side, naturally.) Oh, it wasn't hard enough to seriously hurt, but I knew I had been slapped.

He smiled, perhaps at my look of surprise, and then said, "You -- are learning, Jeremy," -- and opened the door before I could fish the key out of my pocket.


By the next morning, the rain had stopped. Squinting against the light from the rising sun, I studied the Canadian road map I had picked up at the motel when I'd gone in to pay the bill, as Caine put our few belongings in the trunk of my car. Highway 20 to Highway 3 looked as if it would take us back to the U.S.A. in the vicinity of Detroit. Anything else in Canada worth visiting while we were here? I glanced over the map again.

"Ever been to Toronto?" I asked Caine. It would take us a little out of our way to stop off there, but it was doable.

"Yes."

"I haven't. Is it worth seeing?"

"It is -- a city, -- like any other," he replied, closing the trunk gently.

"You don't make it sound very exciting."

He shrugged, apparently not much interested in the prospect.

"It is -- your car, -- so it is up to you."

I thought of the vast distance still to cover before we would reach California.

"Maybe some other time," I replied, as we got into the car.



BACK TO STORY INDEX