The Falls by Oates Joyce Carol

Author:Oates, Joyce Carol [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Modern Classics, Novel
ISBN: 9780061742811
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

3

ONE BY ONE, in the late winter and early spring of 1962, his brothers turned from him.

There was the day at City Hall when Tyler “Spooky” Wenn stared coldly at him, and passed Dirk Burnaby without a word. “Hello, Mr. Mayor!” Dirk called after the man’s stiff retreating back, in a phalanx of several other stiff retreating backs, the mayor’s companions. In a voice of perfectly pitched mockery Dirk Burnaby spoke.

There was the day when Buzz Fitch passed him by. Or nearly. Pausing at Dirk’s table in the Boat Club, unsmiling, A curt nod. Fitch’s grave, gravelly voice. “Burnaby.” Dirk glanced up, and forced a smile. But he knew not to extend a hand to be rebuffed. “Fitch. Mr. Assistant Chief of Police Fitch. Congratulations!”

(Did Fitch pack a gun, wearing a suit and tie, dining at the Boat Club with friends? Dirk had to suppose, yes.)

There was the day when Stroughton Howell passed him by: Dirk’s old law school friend, newly appointed Judge Howell of the Niagara County District Court, in handsome black judge’s robe worn with a theatrical flair. Yet his moist-eyed glance at Dirk was one, Dirk would afterward recall, of pained regret, as Howell moved toward an elevator in deep conversation with one of his clerks in the high-ceilinged open foyer of the county courthouse, and Dirk Burnaby prepared to leave by a side door. Howell stared, and Howell murmured what sounded like, “Dirk!”, and seemed about to say more then decided no, and moved on. “Judge Howell, hello,” Dirk called after the man.

But Judge Howell, entering the elevator, didn’t glance back.

Congratulations on your appointment, Judge. I’m sure you deserve it, even more than your esteemed colleagues on the bench.

And there was the painful evening at the Rainbow Grand where he’d gone for a drink with his old friend Clyde Colborne. After one of his long days. After one of his very long days. And Clyde Colborne said quietly, “Burn. I hope to hell you know what you’re doing.” And Dirk said, irritably, “No, Clyde. Tell me.”

Clyde shook his head gravely. As if Dirk were asking too much of him, even in friendship.

Dirk said, “What I’m doing, Clyde, is following my instinct for once. Not the money trail. My conscience.”

Conscience! Clyde glanced at Dirk, alarmed.

“You can afford a consciance, Dirk. You’re a Burnaby. But that won’t last forever.” Clyde paused, suppressing a mean-brotherly smile. “The way your practice is hemorrhaging, it won’t hardly last the year.”

“I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about justice.”

Justice! Like conscience, this merited a look, from Clyde, of alarm.

Clyde Colborne was fast becoming a ruin of a handsome man. He still had the rich-boy’s swagger, that never offended because it invited you to join in; he still had the hotelier’s gregarious air. But in recent years the Rainbow Grand was drawing fewer guests, and far fever rich guests, each season. You could see and feel the shift along Prospect Street, in the other old luxury hotels, as if the climate of Niagara Falls were changing.

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