Evan Connell - Mr. Bridge

A few minutes later she looked up from her magazine and said, “That’s odd. It just occurred to me. He never plays them.”

“If he doesn’t play them why did he buy them?”

“I can’t imagine. I suppose he does, but for some reason it seems to me that Carolyn is the one who puts them on the machine.”

Mr. Bridge picked up the statement from the music store and looked again at the sales receipt which Douglas had signed; then he handed the receipt to her, and as she studied it an expression of bewilderment came across her face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. But she did not answer. “That’s his signature, is it not?”

“Oh, I suppose it must be,” she said so weakly that he could hardly hear her.

“Is it? Or isn’t it? You know his handwriting better than I do. Is that his signature, or not?” But still she hesitated. “Do you recognize it?” he insisted.

“I don’t pretend to be an expert,” she said, and touched herself on the forehead as if she was about to faint.

“Listen to me. Who signed this receipt?”

“There must be an explanation.”

“There is, and I intend to have it. Where is Douglas?”

“In his room, I believe.”

Mr. Bridge got up and started toward the steps. She called his name. He turned around.

“What are you planning to do?”

“Before doing anything I intend to ask a few questions.”

“There’s some mistake, I’m just sure.”

“I hope so. We will not have any monkey business in this house.”

Douglas was lying on his back on the Navajo rug. He was holding both legs straight up in the air. His face was contorted and his eyes were squeezed shut.

Mr. Bridge asked what he was doing.

He replied through clenched teeth that he was trying to see how long he could hold his legs up.

“Why?”

“Because,” he gasped, and sucked in his breath.

“Is there some reason you never play your Bing Crosby records?”

Douglas gradually lowered his feet to the floor. For several moments he lay quietly with an agonized expression. His brow wrinkled as though he might be thinking. “It really gets you in the gut,” he said. And then: “Who says I got any Bing Crosby records?”

“You bought eight this past month.”

After a long silence Douglas said, “Nope. Not me, boss.”

“You did not?”

“Bing—” he said, and cleared his throat. “Bing Crosby records?”

“Bing Crosby records.”

“Old boo-boop-a-doo?”

“Did you or did you not charge several records at the Plaza music store recently?”

To show that he was mystified Douglas scratched his head. Then he said in a plaintive voice, “No, I didn’t. Will somebody please tell me what in the zook this is all about?”

“Where are your sisters?”

“Search me.”

“Have they gone out?”

“Who cares?”

The girls were not in their room, so Mr. Bridge went downstairs and pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. Harriet was alone in the kitchen. She was drying dishes while listening to jazz on the radio. She turned down the volume until it was inaudible and went on wiping a dish while she watched him with a neutral expression.

“I am looking for the girls. Have you seen them?”

“I sure haven’t,” she said promptly, almost enthusiastically, very much relieved that her radio program had not brought him into the kitchen. “Well, hold on though, let me think a minute. Ruth, she went somewheres a little bit back. Movies, if I recall, she and her friend Dodie. Carolyn, now, I don’t know. Wait, I do believe. Here it comes to me — she’s ’cross the street.”

“When she gets home, tell her I want to speak to her.”

“I will. I sure will. Soon as she puts one foot in the door.”

He left the kitchen, walked through the breakfast room, and was about to go upstairs when he noticed a light was on in the basement recreation room. He went down a few steps and looked. Carolyn was on the chaise longue with her hands behind her head and her feet crossed.

“I got home a couple of minutes ago,” she said. “I came in the front door.”

“What were you doing across the street?” he asked pleasantly.

“Patsy and I were talking. Do you want anything special?”

“No,” he said before he could prevent himself. He did not know why he had said this, nor why he had smiled. He saw that she was observing him closely. He went down the rest of the steps and approached the chaise longue in a serious manner.

“Daddy, I overheard you talking about those records.”

“Oh? You did, did you?” He sensed that she was trying to control the conversation.

“Why didn’t you come to me first?”

“Now, just one minute,” he said.

“I’m sorry. You may not believe me, but I really am.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“You know.”

She had managed to confess without actually admitting anything and before being accused. He looked down at her with an expression of annoyance.

“I’m not sure I do know.”

She reached up and took his hand. “Haven’t I apologized? What more do you want, Daddy? Am I supposed to take those records back to the store? If that’s what you want, I will. Whatever you say.”

She had signed her brother’s name to the receipt. To call this “forgery” sounded absurd, yet that was what it was. He wondered if she would have mentioned it if she had not been caught.

She was watching carefully. “I was meaning to tell you. Honestly I was, but Daddy at times you’re impossible.”

He wanted to pull his hand away, but he could not; so soon she would be grown. Soon she would belong to another man.

“Carolyn,” he said in a supplicating voice, “how could you do it?”

She withdrew her hand and refused to look at him, as though he were the one who had betrayed a trust.

Ruth had been pasting pictures of movie stars on the walls of her closet. Mrs. Bridge, discovering this, was greatly displeased on two accounts: first, because the closet would need to be repainted after the pictures were scraped off, and second, because all the pictures were of men. She was so displeased that before speaking to Ruth about the matter she consulted her husband. He did not care how Ruth decorated the closet. Mrs. Bridge mentioned the expense and the inconvenience of repainting. He was not sure this would be necessary. She invited him to have a look at the closet, the better to understand the problem, so he followed her to the girls’ room. Mrs. Bridge opened the closet door and began pushing aside the sweaters, blouses, slips, skirts, coats, and everything else Ruth had stuffed into the closet, and at last he observed that what she said was true: movie stars were peeking at him from everywhere. Some were in swimming trunks, some were on the golf course, some were pictured at home, others were merely beaming at the camera. There they were, dozens of them glued to the wall. He contemplated them. He was bemused by the rows of blinding white teeth, the rather benevolent and universal stupidity shining from the featureless faces of these totems. He said he could not see any reason to scrape them off the wall. Ruth would get tired of the pictures. In another year or so she would be sick of them and of her own accord would ask if the closet could be repainted, whereas now she would raise a fuss if the pictures were removed. Let her alone, he advised. After all, Ruth was the only one who had to look at them.

Mrs. Bridge, still very serious, at last agreed, but added that she felt it was setting a poor example for Carolyn.

So the collection remained, and gradually increased as though the handsome gentlemen were multiplying spontaneously.